Superintendent

Patricia L. Buell

Superintendent of Schools

September 23, 2017

Dear Brooklyn School Community,

As our students and staff are working hard, the roofers continue to work on the roofs of both schools. BMS roof is almost complete and the BES roof should be completed in October. It is great to see the progress on the roofs and to see our students learning!

This week as the weather warms up, the students will enjoy their recess time and outdoor activities! It is always such a pleasure to see students learning and playing! The sounds of outdoor recess are wonderful, I will be looking forward to hearing them.

I want to give you a bus update. Many of you are aware that our bus company M&J began transporting our students last year. This year we have had more challenges than expected in getting the bus routes so they run smoothly. I have communicated with many parents already and we have ongoing meetings and calls with the bus company. Please know that we are working diligently to ensure that our students are arriving to school on time, get home within a reasonable time and are riding in buses that are not too crowded. I would ask that you continue to communicate with me if your children are not picked up, if your child is picked up more than 15 minutes late or arrives home later than 15 minutes from the posted times on the bus routes. Please email me at buell@brooklynschools.org

This week we have a Board of Education Meeting on Wednesday, September 26, 2017 at 7:00PM. Our administrators will be presenting the School Advancement Plan, this is the plan on how to improve student achievement this year. The Advancement Plan will be posted on our website and we welcome any questions you may have. The Advancement Plans will be posted at the end of the week.

Have a great weekend and week ahead! Happy autumn! It is my pleasure to serve you and your children!

I hope that you have had a great full week of school! I saw many sharp looking students getting their picture taken in our schools! I also observed students working in classes at BES and BMS. Students have begun taking the STAR assessment which will give us baseline academic information and measure the growth as a result of our instruction.

The buses have improved this week, but there are still some routes that need to be edited. There are a few different M&J employees working on reviewing the routes again to see if there are additional efficiencies that can be made. I am hopeful that we will continue to improve routes for everyone and we will communicate that out as soon as possible.

I wanted to share a few pictures from the schools:

The Town of Brooklyn has worked hard this week to cut the weeds around the buildings and trim limbs on the trees! It looks great! Thank you!

Brooklyn Elementary School blue roof looks great! The roofers are not done yet, but it looks very nice!

Brooklyn Middle School roof is almost done! This weekend the roofers will be applying asphalt and stone. Part of the project included installing 30+ drains in the roof. As you can see, this one is working!

Have a wonderful weekend and and week! It is such a pleasure to serve the community of Brooklyn!

Sincerely,Patricia L. BuellSuperintendent

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September 8, 2017

Dear Brooklyn School Community,

I hope you have all had a wonderful week! This four day week was an exciting week with Open House at BES and BMS! We also enjoyed the High School Fair and the PTO BBQ! The staff at both schools proudly welcomed many students and their families into their classrooms to talk about the great work that be happening this school year! It was also really wonderful to meet so many representatives from area high schools! Many of them brought our very own Brooklyn High School Students! Brooklyn has so much to be proud of, every high school that I speak to about the Brooklyn students says that they are great students, great kids and a pleasure to have in their high school! Great day, great turnout!

2017 Brooklyn Elementary Open House and PTO BBQ

Thank you to the PTO members, you sure know how to throw a great BBQ!

Thank you to the Mortlake Fire Department for cooking!

Finally, bus routes were still not what we hoped they would be by the second week. I want to assure you that we continue to improve the dependability and routes. We have posted the bus routes on the District/Transportation page. As they are updated I will update the bus routes on our website! Thank you for continuing to share your experience with the offices. We continue to address every email or phone call. Thank you for your patience, the routes have improved, I know it will get better!

Sincerely,

Patricia L. Buell
Superintendent

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September 4, 2017

Dear Brooklyn School Community,

Happy Labor Day! I hope you are enjoying time with friends and family! Our first week of school was filled with many happy smiles and warm wishes as students and staff reunited with friends they have not seen since June!

School buses ran slower than we had hoped, but we continue to work collaboratively with the bus company to iron out long routes and late buses. Thank you for your patience and understanding as this has taken longer to work out than expected. I hope for a much better second week! Please continue to reach out to the elementary and middle school offices for students in grades K-8. For students attending high school, please contact Melissa Costa in Central Office at (860) 774-9153, to report any concerns or to address any questions.

The school roof work continues with very little disruption to instruction. If you have not had an opportunity to see the new blue roof on Brooklyn Elementary School I hope you will like it! This week is the Brooklyn Middle School Open House on Wednesday, September 6th 7:30PM-8:30PM; and Brooklyn Elementary School Open House is Thursday, September 7th 5:00-7:00PM beginning with a BBQ. Hope to see you there, you will have an opportunity to see the roof work then and meet staff and other families!

This is a good time to remind you to plan ahead! We have School Messenger to alert parents to schedule changes or other events! We ask you to log into your account to verify your contact information is correct so that you will receive notifications by phone, email or text to as many devices as you set up in your preferences.

Have a great week! It is my pleasure to serve the students, families and community of Brooklyn!

Sincerely,

Patricia L. Buell
Superintendent

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Dear Brooklyn School Community,

Happy New Year! This is a very exciting time of the year as we begin another school year! The teachers and entire staff anxiously await the arrival of students for the first day of school on August 30, 2017!

This summer was very busy at Brooklyn Elementary and Brooklyn Middle Schools with roof projects and cleaning. The schools are looking wonderful for the first day of school. Teachers had very limited time to enter the building this summer and set up their classrooms but they did a fantastic job! I would like to extend my appreciation to the staff who worked in the schools this summer to ensure that the buildings were ready,and ensure that teachers and students have what they need to begin the year with instructional materials and supplies. Principals and secretaries registered new students, ordered materials and developed schedules while the roofers were busy outside of the building and custodians were busy cleaning. Thank you to the many teachers who spent the last few days of summer setting up and preparing for students on the first day!

As your children enter their classrooms and begin a new school year, please know that they are cared for and will be challenged to achieve to their fullest potential! We are looking forward to the new school year and want to greet each student and welcome them to our schools. We appreciate the support that the Brooklyn community shows the schools throughout the year.

This year the elementary school will be working on learning how to implement writers workshop at all grade levels. This is a specific writing approach which supports students as writers and offers opportunities to write across genres. As your child learns about this writing approach, we hope that you will see their excitement as they grow as writers. The elementary school staff will be implementing a standards based report card for the first time. A great deal of work has been devoted to the development of these report cards and scoring rubrics. More information about this will be shared as the first trimester begins. I would also like to congratulate the pre-kindergarten and kindergarten staff who went through the process of re-accreditation through the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and achieve accreditation status for another five years! This is a mark of a high quality program, one that is a source of pride for the town of Brooklyn.

The middle school students will once again begin the busy schedule of a middle school student! There are many clubs, sports and activities for your child to engage in. Academically staff continue to work on the articulation and implementation of the curriculum in all content areas and ensure the alignment to the Connecticut State Standards in order to prepare them for high school. The staff members will also be focusing on mathematics to identify and implement high yield teaching strategies and monitor student outcomes. It promises to be another exiting year at BMS!

The roof project has receive a lot of attention. At this point, although they are not completed yet, we do not anticipate any impact to the start of the school year for students or parents dropping children off or picking them up. The middle school roof should be completed by mid September and the elementary school work will continue into October. Although there will be some drilling to secure the new roof, it is not too loud and might only result in a minor disruption for up to a day over each classroom. We will not be able to see the BMS roof, as it is flat but it looks great! The portion of the roof being replaced at BES will be visible from the school grounds and already looks beautiful!

Finally, the transportation provided by M & J Busing continues to be adjusted as I write, less then 18 hours before the start of school. There are many reasons for the adjustments, one is because this company is working to ensure safe, efficient and fiscally responsible routes for our students and community. The footprint of Brooklyn is large and once again this year, routes have been adjusted to meet the changing students in our community. Brooklyn Public Schools transports students to several high schools and has multiple schedules it needs to follow. The complexity of the routes are impacted each time we make a change. As new students enroll, this week we have had many new enrollments, we are adjusting routes to accommodate as many families as possible. Please understand that the first few days may result in new glitches that may require adjustments. We welcome your calls to address any questions you have and are addressing them as efficiently as we are able. Please feel free to contact our offices at Brooklyn Elementary, Brooklyn Middle and Central Office for high school students. We want to know if there are any concerns with the buses.

I look forward to meeting you this school year and watching your children grow and learn! Happy New Year!